


God of Healing

by deborah_judge



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Religious Themes & References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura dreams of a dying woman.  Originally posted in 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God of Healing

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in September 2005, after the first of the Cain episodes. (And before her first name was correctly revealed.) I have mixed feelings about how this stands up to later information about Cain, including 'Razor', but there are still things about the story I like so I'm posting it here.

There is a universe (not this one) in which Laura Roslin stands on the bridge of the Pegasus with Nelena Cain. When the Admiral turns back to attack the Cylon ships, Laura takes her hand. There is hope, she says. There is a future. There is Earth.

Nelena's face is hard, and she will not give up command. Laura shows her the prophecies, and she will not believe. But in this universe, Nelena's hand is soft in Laura's, and her set lips require only a few more kisses before they can begin to smile. "Everybody falls," Laura says. She brushes back Nelena's hair, and loses herself in the pain in Nelena's dark eyes.

*

When Laura wakes, it is a man and not a woman beside her. She knows this man, and she knows, after a moment, that she is grateful that they have been allowed this night together. "Lee," she whispers, as he strokes her shoulder. He holds her. She knows he must have heard her scream.

"Let me get you some water," he says. He is good at taking care of her, has always been. The dreams have not stopped, and Elosha is no longer alive to interpret them.

Two days ago Admiral Cain brought her ship into their lives. A blessing, Laura supposed. One thousand seven hundred and fifty-two more lives to add to the remnant of humanity. Another Battlestar to keep them safe in their journey. More supplies, once their allocation can be negotiated.

A new military leader, to slowly learn to trust.

Lee sits by her, his hand on her knee as she drinks. "I don't like her," he says. "There's something wrong about her ship, like they're doing something they don't want to think about."

Laura wonders if Admiral Cain likes to shoot dogs.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Laura says. She had ordered, once, to abandon civilians, to leave them to die. Lee had stood by her then, had trusted her, had believed that she was not what she thought she had become. When she had asked him to destroy a crowded ship he had done it, and still he had been willing to love her.

"You should go," Laura says. "Admiral Cain will be waiting."

*

Nelena's body is hard in this dream, but when Laura clasps her she feels achingly thin. Laura kisses her frown, and the bruise on the back of her neck, and the half-healed scar at the base of her throat.

At last Nelena raises her hand to touch Laura's breast. She caresses it, strokes it, feels the malignant growth. "You are dying," she says, and her eyes burn with a longing fire, because she craves this. Laura is death to her now, the death that will cleanse and free her. She places her hand over the tumor, and squeezes gently.

"Let me love you," Laura says. She reaches for Nelena's hips and pulls her closer. "If nothing else, then this." Nelena's smile is feral, but she nods, and lets Laura unbutton her admiral's uniform so that at last they can be close together.

*

"She'll be angry that I'm late," Lee says. "Admiral Cain is always angry. And her orders are starting to make no sense."

"She's been through a lot." She has been through many things, but has never shuddered and arched under Laura's hands. This only happened in a dream, only in a drug-induced vision that she does not understand. There is nothing attractive about this harsh and angry woman, nothing that would make Laura desire her.

"So have we," Lee says, "but we've never forgotten what we fight for. It's as if she's gone crazy and she's trying to take all of us down with her."

Laura had been crazy, plagued with visions and dreams that she had recklessly chosen to believe. Lee had stood with her then, had allowed these visions to become real.

"Everybody falls," Laura says. "I fell. Over and over. You caught me." Her hands are in his and he smiles at that because he always likes it when he can make her happy. And it's all right, because he is her Captain Apollo and she knows he will always come back. She can let him go, now, and she is safe because she knows that whenever he leaves he will always return. No matter what she does, he will always return.

"Good hunting," she says.

*

Nelena's body is relaxed under hers, but even after lovemaking in this dream there is barely a smile. She is dying inside, this woman in Laura's arms, ravaged by a wasting disease that will consume her soul. No god of healing will comfort her in her final weeks, no revelations will give meaning to her death. No grateful people will bless her memory, and no scrolls will remember her sacrifice.

"Come to me," Nelena says, and it is almost a prayer, and Laura understands at last. She kisses this broken dream-woman, and cradles her like a promise, because not even an admiral should be expected to stand alone against the dark.

"Yes," Laura says. "Yes." And it frightens her, because this woman is so close to death, and Laura is dying as well, and she doesn't know how life could come from anything that they could do together. The dream-ship of Pegasus shelters them in this vision, but Laura's promise is an oath to the gods, and is not a dream. "I will," she says. "Everybody falls."


End file.
